Band Members

BIOGRAPHY

Ever since bringing down the house with Nouvelle Vague at Royal Albert Hall, everybody has been wondering who was the man with the yellow glasses and the voice. That would be Valente.

Born in Rome to an Italian Opera director and an American Jazz singer, Valente was raised on his sisters' punk and new wave records in Switzerland. Eventually he'd make his way to LA by way of London. After posting his first recordings on MySpace on a whim, the word spread fast. Soon Valente found messages from some of his childhood heroes waiting in his inbox. Along the list of people who started contacting him was Marc Collin, inviting him to collaborate on "Two For The Road" with Katrine Ottosen (of CallmeKat). The concept behind the record was to score an imaginary movie. It became an instant success among musicians and producers in the know. The album started opening doors to other projects, Nouvelle Vague and Hollywood Mon Amour being a natural segue.

While cutting his teeth touring internationally, Valente still found time to produce songs for Angela McCluskey's new album, sing with Shana Halligan of Bittersweet on Carmen Rizzo's latest record, collaborate with Gordon Gano of the Violent Femmes on Danish duo The Blackout Babies' debut EP.

On the road and constantly writing for his own album, it wasn't long before he had assembled a crew of Paris' and LA's finest to set on his journey to record his debut album "Music For Rooftops". Recorded at Aaron Embry's (Daniel Lanois, Edward Sharpe, etc.) Hunter's Hollow studio, this cinematic record involved collaborations with the likes of Avi Buffalo, Tahiti Boy and Fred Avril. It's easy to lose yourself in Valente's signature sound; It's as if Eno provided the atmospheres behind Police penned songs, sung over by his Chet Baker-like voice.

The first peek into the album was the Alexandria EP, a glimpse into the sonic explorations to come on Music for Rooftops. The record is a testimony to Valente's many travels. Among Valente's many early supporters is Jason Eldredge who hosts respected music shows on both East Village Radio (NY) and KCRW (LA). He brought his music to listeners as "An artist you should know" and, with the album release in April 2013, ready or not, there's no doubt you will.

Review

Posted: June 17, 2013 on http://aeschtunes.wordpress.com

Valente is a producer and an artist, and is the son of an American jazz singer and an Italian opera and theatre director. According to the bio on his website, Valente says he was inspired by both his parents’ work and his sisters’ punk and new wave records. He has also studied bass playing and film scoring.

Valente has released an EP titled, Alexandria. He has now released his first full-length album, titled Music for Rooftops.

There are a total of nine tracks on Music for Rooftops, eight of which have vocals. The ending track, “Azabu,” is an instrumental. Many of the songs seem to be more downtempo, with the main exceptions to this being “It Don’t Matter” and “Human.” Musically, this is an album that would me a “mood album” for me; what this means is that I would have to be in just the right mood to sit down and listen to it, and that it wouldn’t be a release that I would listen to simply on a whim.

On many of the songs, I thought that the vocalist sounded a little too much like Chris Martin for Coldplay. In fact, there’s one song on album (“Curtain Call”) that almost sounds as if it could have come straight off of a Coldplay album, due to the combination of the vocals and the fact that the song focuses very heavily on a piano arrangement.

By the time I finished listening to Music for Rooftops, I was left with the impression that Valente has a talent for making music, but that this release just sounds a little too similar to Coldplay. While there are a couple of songs that stand out on the release, I felt that a lot of material ended up being a bit forgettable after listening to it.

But you don’t have to take my word for it. You can check Valente out for yourself at.

April 25th 2013 posted by Sunny Menagerie on GoldenMixtape.com

After Only Living Boy last night, I debated listening to another album to review. Did I want to stay up until 3am, or head to bed and just do it in the morning? I chose music over sleep and wish I could’ve held my eyes open a little longer to jot down my thoughts on Valente’sMusic For Rooftops. Now I’m sitting with local commercials playing in the background as I remember the trance I was in due to the captivating Coldplay-like trance Music For Rooftops put me in.

Let’s get one thing out there, I’m not a Coldplay fan at all. I like one of their songs every now and then, but would I ever buy an album? Nope. So I was surprised that right off the bat, I heard and compared Valente to Chris Martin when it came to the vocals, but liked it. “Still” and “It Don’t Matter” were the ones to get me on board, but it was the emotion laced ways of “Delicious” and “Human” that caused me to stay. Every song played like a somber tale, no matter what the story involved, the words were sung in such a manner that you felt Valente was this hurt soul.

But like Coldplay, sometimes things got to be too sad sounding and I had to just pass on them. Moments in Music For Rooftops that I said adios to quickly were “The Distant Lights” and “Curtain Call.” Now the next point isn’t a positive or a negative on the record, just something I wanted to point out. During both “Home” and “Wrecking Ball” there were these weird pit stops in the middle that just felt odd. Listen and let me know if you agree or disagree on that…

If I was a teacher and Valente turned in Music For Rooftops to me as a final project, I’d give it a B-. The vocals were spot on, the emotion was there, but those weird breaks in those couple of songs and the uber-downers were a checkmark on the wrong side for me. if you’re a fan of bands like (obviously) Coldplay and Keane, then make sure to take a minute or two to get to know Valente. Music For Rooftops is out now.